


Dreams of Stone and Fire

by Steampunk_Hobbit



Series: We Are Different From Them [4]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Online
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Dreams, Dúnadan Rune-keeper, Gen, He's the Rune-keeper trader, Slice of Life, Stay away from sulfur vents kids, You can find him at Iorelen's Camp in the Rift of Núrz Gáshu, a little bit of Lewis butted his way in here, couldn't help myself, handsome man is unsure of himself, he's real, if the Lore-master don't know check with your local Rune-keeper, nasty stuff, references to the Wood Between the Worlds, was that a cougar? I'll let you decide lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26239984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steampunk_Hobbit/pseuds/Steampunk_Hobbit
Summary: The situation in the Rift of Núrz Gháshu is tense as the team sent to scout this area has little to no information to work with.Camruin, after returning from a failed scouting mission, is shown something that leaves him only asking more questions. So great is his desire, that his dreams are far from quiet.Where did he go?It would be a question he would ask himself for years ever after.
Relationships: Camruin & Arodinnas, Camruin & Forgamdir
Series: We Are Different From Them [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1374133
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Dreams of Stone and Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This was not going to be the next installment in this series, but Camruin kicked in my mental front door and demanded to be written, lol.
> 
> What are the chances that I would write about those Glorfindel was worrying about in [Glitch in the Valley](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23663200). Did I mention them in that story? I don't know if I did 😆
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. Shamelessly I'll admit it got a little away from me, but I had a lot of fun writing Camruin and volcanology. 👌

The landscape was cold. Empty.

Lifeless.

He could sense a fire burning deep below his feet, wrathful and writhing like something alive. It was a troubling juxtaposition to the ashen grey all around.

He pulled his grey cloak tighter around his shoulders, the wind picking up. It moaned through every craig and crevice. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, as did the hair on his arms. There was too much noise. The level in which he could hear was diminished.

“Camruin, what troubles you so?” his fellow scout breathed. He glanced at him, taking a short moment to observe Forgamdir’s black cloak, before he returned to scanning their surroundings.

He was hesitant to reply. His voice would be too loud.

Finally, “This place… it feels—” he paused, working his jaw “— _wrong_.” At any moment it felt as if the earth would split open, allowing the fires below to come gushing forth. His hand snaked into the pouch of runestones that hung at his hip. His fingers wrapped around his rune of water, and the cool rush that swept up from the balls of his feet helped to ground him.

Forgamdir scanned their surroundings slowly, before propping himself up on a nearby boulder. He pulled out a spyglass and stretched the cylindrical object out to its full length. He put the narrow end to his good eye and swept the horizon with it. Camruin propped himself up next to his friend.

Silence once again filled the space between them. The air was empty, save for the ominous howling of the wind. The stone beneath his feet groaned, too quiet for Forgamdir to hear, but loud enough for Camruin. It whispered of the agony brought on by the darkness, of the movements of the enemy. The whispers were almost too quiet to understand, but it made his insides twist.

There were times in which he wished he could hear it louder, that he was more in touch with what was granted to those who wielded the runes and their ancient power. He had more elven blood rushing through his veins than most of the Dúnedain (second to the blood of their Chieftain, of course), but he was still a Man. The race of Men was not all that magically inclined—the most fluent they could become was in healing magic and some nature magic without going as far as to sell their souls to Sauron. Lore-masters were the only ones who were strong in anything magic-related, the rare exception.

He would never be as strong as an elven Rune-keeper—or a dwarven one, for that matter. Though, he couldn’t let himself dwell on that right now. Not when—

A familiar cry drew his attention up in time for him to stretch out his arm. A gorgeous brown and gold eagle alighted on his forearm, its viciously-long claws digging into the leather of his bracer. “Malgamba!” he greeted quietly.

The eagle cooed in response, before quickly reaching down to pick at one of his ankles. Camruin gently pushed feathers out of the way until he saw that there was a tightly-wound scroll tied around the eagle’s leg.

“Good boy,” Camruin whisper, carefully untying the scroll as the eagle took to happily preening his feathers.

Camruin reached over and tapped Forgamdir on the shoulder. His fellow Dúnadan grumbled a little before pulling away from the spyglass. He glanced over his shoulder with a slight glare, but when saw what Camruin was holding, his eyes widened. He quickly collapsed his spyglass and tucked it back into its pouch before taking the scroll.

Camruin watched as his friend slowly, carefully unrolled the paper so it didn’t make too much noise. Malgamba hopped up to Camruin’s padded shoulder as Forgamdir began to read the message in a tone that was barely above a mumble.

“ ‘ _Camruin, Forgamdir, I hope this message finds you well_.

“ ‘ _You must return to camp. The group of scouts to your north have spotted enemy activity that is quickly travelling south towards your position. It is one of the enemy’s mining legions, and there is a great possiblity that they will see you. Return to camp and report what you have found. Iorelen_.’ ”

Forgamdir rolled the message back up and tucked it into one of his many pockets. “We haven’t found where the new mine is yet,” he pointed out.

Camruin scratched thoughtfully at the five o’clock on his jaw. “We have been searching for several days, and have yet to find it. With miners marching this way, it’s safe to say the mine is not yet here. We will have to return in the future.”

Forgamdir snorted. “That is only if their security will be weak enough to penetrate again. I can’t imagine that they won’t have dozens of guard trolls, plus several more trolls for mining.”

Camruin sighed. “The decision has been taken from us.” In the distance, the sound of rough barking in Black Speech echoed faintly. “Let us go.”

* * *

Conversation around the fires grew hushed when they found themselves safely back at camp. Camruin let out a sigh of relief as he dropped his pack next to his bedroll. The warmth from the fires was a welcome thing after the days in which they were unable to light their own.

Malgamba chirped to him in greeting from where he was perched on the camp’s message box. He had gone on ahead once Camruin and Forgamdir had decided to return.

Iorelen, a tall and graceful elf who had seen many, many years, stood from where he had been sitting by one of the fires. “You have returned safely,” he began. “It is wonderful.” There was a smile, but it was calm, collected, and barely there. Such was the nature of elves. “Tell us, what information were you able to gather?”

Forgamdir took the lead and began to explain what they had done. Camruin took that time to plunk down at his usual spot at one of the fires. He kept his attention on what Forgamdir was saying, and reached out automatically when the camp cook handed him his bowl, now filled with a watery stew with chunks of meat of strange consistency. He prodded at the chunks with his wooden spoon until he scooped one out and gingerly put in his mouth. What meat had the hunters managed to gather this time?

He chewed for a while, his nose wrinkling the longer he did. It felt rubbery, and its taste reminded him of what he smelled when the cook tried to cook some of the deer they had found in the highlands and ended up burning it.

He chewed on, praying to Eru that he wouldn’t suffer food poisoning later. After eating only hard tack and a tiny, tiny amount of dried meat for the last half a week, he needed the protein.

Thankfully, the broth of the stew tasted better, even when the root vegetables that bobbed in it had little to no flavour.

Arodinnas sank down next to him in the last remaining spot on his side of the fire as Forgamdir finished the report.

“Do you know what the meat is?” Camruin asked the Lore-master.

Arodinnas paused and glanced down at the bowl in his hands. He prodded at one of the chunks and hummed thoughtfully. “It might be…” his eyebrows furrowed, then rose “some older meat, heavily salted, maybe? I’m not quite sure.” He pursed his lips. “But it’s not bat, rat, or cat, I know that.” He glanced over at where a lynx skulked in the shadows—his companion, Hithdál.

Camruin hummed.

“Anyway,” Arodinnas continued, “I was scouting around the camp while you were gone, and I came across something interesting.” He gave him a smile. “I may know some things about the stone beneath our feet, but I know you are more knowledgeable about it.”

Camruin cocked an eyebrow at Arodinnas before giving him a bemused smile. “What is it?” His mind’s eye reminded him of what he had felt before he and Forgamdir had to return to camp. “I may be a Rune-keeper, Arod, but I’m nowhere near as strong with my abilities as an elf or a dwarf. Jónsi would be more equipped to help you.” He nodded in the direction of the mentioned dwarf. Jónsi wasn’t a Rune-keeper, but dwarves had a sort of stone-sense that had to be stronger than his own.

Arodinnas gave him a look that said that he doubted his words. “Stop underestimating yourself, Camruin,” he chastised. He pushed himself back to his feet, and stepped away from the fire. “Now, come.”

Camruin sighed and followed him, leaving his bowl and spoon in his spot. He would wash it later.

He followed his fellow Ranger to the edge of the camp, then out into the dark of the wasteland. Hithdál padded after them silently. Arodinnas used his staff like a walking-stick, favouring his right leg a little. Camruin wondered what he had done to it.

“What did you do to yourself?” he asked.

Arodinnas gave him a dry chuckle. “I tripped and tweaked my knee a little while I was investigating.”

Camruin gave him a gentle pat on his shoulder. He said nothing, and took to carefully scanning their surroundings as they went.

Around twenty minutes later, Arodinnas spoke. “Here we are!” He gestured to a depression in the rocky terrain before them, a great bowl where the stone had been seemingly scooped out by a great spoon.

Camruin stared down into the basin, noting the spindly remnants of ancient trees until his gaze landed on a peculiar sight. His brow furrowed, his heart began to beat faster, and it suddenly was more of an effort to breathe.

What… was it?

There were flames—but they were blue. _Blue_. Not red. They licked up from cracks in the floor of the basin, similar to how the unearthly flames that danced in the braziers that stood and hung around the enemy’s settlements.

“What is it?” he asked. It was as if the fires of the void were attempting to reach up into their space.

Arodinnas shrugged. “This is what I wanted to show you. It was much fainter when I first saw it, but the sun was just dipping below the horizon at the time.”

Camruin swallowed back the apprehension that was growing in the pit of his stomach, and hummed. “Alright, then,” he muttered, before bending his knees and beginning the descent to the otherworldly flames.

The sides of the bowl were a mix of soft, powdery ash or grey sand, and boulders. As he grew closer to the bottom, sliding and holding onto the occasional dead tree in order to control his descent, the air started to change. It grew warmer, thicker, and there was a smell. It was faint at first, the warmth, the smog, the smell, but the lower he got the stronger it grew.

At the bottom, his breath caught in his throat. The air was filled with a thick miasma that smelled of eggs that had been left in the sun for days. His stomach twisted, but he closed his throat in a way that he had taught himself to keep himself from vomiting up his supper right then and there.

It was clear that the smell came from the faint clouds emanating from the flames. The flames were so bright that the clouds were almost hidden in the darkness, and the complete opposite to the day, where the flames were hidden by clouds of thick smog that could choke you. He had seen it before while scouting with Forgamdir. But the flames had been red and orange at night there.

In his periphery, he spotted a long stick, the ancient remnant of a branch or sapling, and he grabbed it, even as he brought up the collar of his shirt to try and protect his nose and mouth. He crept closer to the edge of the flames. It was a large patch that took up most of the floor of the bowl, flames leaping from cracks that crisscrossed the area like a fluid. It was mesmerizing. It was noxious. He was starting to feel lightheaded.

He reached out and poked at the flame with the stick. The old wood hissed but didn’t automatically ignite. When he pulled the stick back and brought the tip close, he couldn’t see any burning apart from the hissing, unearthly, glow of the blue fire that clung to the stick.

The fumes were becoming too much. Quickly, he turned and scrambled back up to where Arodinnas was still standing, only faintly visible in what light managed to reach him from the blue flames. He was out of breath by the time he reached him, gasping for vital air that was so scarce down closer by the flames. It was several minutes before his breathing returned to normal, and he held out the stick for his friend to examine while he couldn’t speak.

Arodinnas hummed. “It comes out of the ground, has the consistency of thick syrup, and is…” he leaned close to the tip and sniffed at it. He jerked back at the stench. “It’s the _brimstone_?”

Camruin looked at him, confused. “Brimstone?” he said as he finally caught his breath. He remembered the smell of rotten eggs, and connected the dots. “Ah. Yes. It smells like it down there.”

Arodinnas made a happy noise. “Fascinating!”

Camruin ignored the happiness his friend had at this troubling situation. What kind of threat did this place pose to the camp? There was no one to ask about this. “Was the ground white and yellow when the sun was still up?”

His friend thought about it for a bit. Seconds ticked by where all he could hear was the wind and the faint hissing of the flames. When Arodinnas finally nodded, more pieces clicked together but Camruin was still lost as to what that could mean.

Who could he speak to about this? Who would have the information that he sought?

Maybe the elves? The older ones, the ones that fought the greater evils and had traversed such lands as these where evil chose to dwell.

“Let us return before we end up attracting the wrong attention,” he advised.

* * *

He didn’t feel the rough ground underneath him as he sank into the realm of dreams. He felt his muscles relax for the first time in weeks, no matter how he tried to keep alert enough to be ready for the possible event of an attack.

When his soul seemed to come up for air, slowly emerging like evening mist from water as his consciousness returned, he found himself sitting on a short barrel in a small clearing in the fog. On the edge of his hearing, he could hear the faint sound of running water, and in his mind’s eye, he could see a small stream, a near-trickle of water that wound through stones and fine scrub. It was very peaceful, a soothing balm to what he had been experiencing for the last couple of months (or more? He couldn’t really remember).

Turning his attention from the water, he realized his hands were not still. He was tinkering with something in his hands, and when he looked down he saw that he was holding a thick slab of stone about the size of his hand in his left, and a simple stone chisel in his right. He had already carved a complex and rather beautiful pattern into the surface of the stone, and he hadn’t even noticed himself doing it.

It looked about ready for him to carefully inlay silver, gold, or some beautiful gemstone. A small voice in the back of his mind said that white-gold, along with some aquamarine, would suit this runestone best.

It was unlike any runestone he had ever made under the tutilage of the Rune-keepers in Rivendell. Why would he make such a thing?

Hazily looking about, he had no idea where to get white gold or aquamarine. The two materials were much too pure to form in the Rift, he remembered foggily.

He got up and began to wander, faint desire driving to seek out those materials. A tiny part of him realized what this was—why he was here and no longer at the camp. This was a dream. But that realization was quickly sucked away and he was left back in the moment. He forgot that thought.

The barrel and the clearing quickly disappeared in the fog behind him, and he was alone. But he kept walking.

His feet carried him towards the sound of the water, and he listened to it grow louder. He seemed to move in slow motion, but he still crossed distance.

Sudden splashing, and the sensation of water rushing through the leather of his boots brought sharpness to his senses, and he looked down.

He was met by the sight of the tiny stream he had seen back at the barrel. He crouched down and dipped his hand in the feeble stream, feeling the cool, purifying water. The pollution that seemed to follow him from the bowl and the unearthly fires seemed to wash away as if he took a cleansing bath right then.

As if responding to his touch, the flow of the stream seemed to increase. It was, at first, gradual, but then it came in a rush. The tiny stream quickly grew and swelled, growing deeper and wider.

Within a few, stilted breaths, the stream became a wide river, and he found himself standing in the shallow depths of the side. There was a roar to the water now. He found his breath taken away by the sight.

The longer he stood there, stared at the water, the more he could feel the memories of reality slip away. He felt himself forgetting the worries of the waking world, and peace swept into him like a comforting breeze. He heaved a sigh of relief.

It felt like he dwelt there for an age then. He watched the fog-filled world around him, at complete ease. Occasionally, he watched as patches of massive trees, taller than those found in the Golden Wood, seemed to emerge from the fog, surrounding him and the roaring river that had replaced the stream. Soon, there was no more fog, only trees, that seemed to go on and on and on…

Suddenly, there was a sound. It was clear and crisp, like the strike of a gong. It was a sharp sound, reverberating across the waters of the river. It pulled him from stupour he had found himself in. His ears perked as the sound rang again, followed by other notes of similar tone. The breeze that had been gently buffeting him switched directions and seemed to push him in the direction of the opposite shore. Without thinking, he obeyed it and began to cross the river.

He quickly sank down up to his knees, and then down to his waist. His cloak quickly soaked up water and weighed down on his shoulders. His boots filled and slowed his march, but he pressed on. The river stones below his feet seemed to glow, though not by sunlight. He glanced up and saw how the boughs of the trees on the edges of the river reached to each other and wove together like a great wicker mat. It blocked out all light from the sky. There was no sunlight. No moonlight. No starlight. Yet, there was still light.

It was a glow that illuminated everything. It seemed to hang in the air. The glow came from the stones beneath his feet, though that light was more white and different from what hung in the air. The light over the far bank was amber, and hung among the trees like they came from the trees themselves. It reminded him of the stories of Laurelin and Telperion that had been told to him when he visited Rivendell as a child. Laurelin had glowed like liquid gold, and Telperion like silver. They had shone with the light of the sun and the moon—because, according to the elves, they were what were the sun and the moon, before they were destroyed and their fruits were made to make the sun and the moon.

It often made his head hurt when he thought about it. Man had never known a world without the sun and the moon.

But if it was anything like this, he now understood why the elves always seemed so breathless when they spoke of it.

The riverbed seemed to rise up to meet his feet as he crossed. He never sank deeper than his waist as he went.

Water dripped from him as he climbed up the far bank. He sat down on a nearby boulder and pulled off his boots one by one, dumping the water from them before wringing out his socks. He put them back on, his nose wrinkling as his socks rubbed at his feet wrong and his boots squelched.

His attention was grabbed by the strange noise again, and off he was. He plunged into the glowing forest, and the river disappeared behind him.

He seemed to walk forever after that. His clothes dried and his boots stopped squelching as he passed tree after tree. The trees never changed. There were no beeches, aspens, oaks, or pines. These trees were not of Lothlórien’s mellyrn—where the mellyrn had white trunks and golden leaves, these trees had light brown trunks and emerald green leaves.

Soon, he took to calling these trees _anlaegyrn_ , very-green trees, and admired them until he began to forget where he had come from. He forgot about the river. Then he began to forget there were other kinds of trees… and not just anlaegyrn. He forgot more and more, and if it weren’t for the occasional gong, like the one that had started him on this path, he would have forgotten why he was walking through this forest.

His feet once again splashed into water, and he stopped. Confusion spread through him and he looked down at his feet again.

This time, he had walked right into a shallow pool. He looked up and around, and found himself staring at more pools. They were everywhere. There was no rhyme or reason to them. They were just… _everywhere_.

The more he looked at them, the more he began to realize how unearthly the forest was. What was this place? Why was he here?

He continued walking.

Confusion raged within him. Where did he come from? How far had he walked? His feet did not ache, not yet, but somehow he remembered that he could walk for more than a day straight before his feet began to protest.

His thoughts faded away at this point, and he walked forward, ever following the sound.

He eventually came across another pool, where he caught sight of a couple strange little animals. He hadn’t seen any animals up to this point.

Crouching down, he picked up one of the curious little creatures and looked at it curiously. It was small, and furry. Its little nose wiggled as it sniffed at him and munched on the grass it had in its mouth. Its large, black eyes stared at him sleepily.

He gently touched the ribbon that was tied around the creature’s middle, the first sign of presence of people that he had come across. Tied to the ribbon was a small yellow ring (yellow, not gold). It was such a curious thing that he found himself untying the ribbon. The ribbon dropped to the ground, and the ring sat in the palm of his hand. The little creature let out a strange, but endearing, chirping sound, and he pet it fondly before he set it back down next to its pool.

The ring slipped into his pocket without him really noticing.

What he _did_ notice was how his mind felt stuffed with feathers or cotton. His limbs grew heavy and his eyelids drooped. He felt sleepy.

He fought the fatigue and stood. His legs felt rubbery as blood flow returned to his legs. The sound came again, and he forgot about the creatures of that pool and continued on.

He didn’t notice when he walked through a shallow depression, empty of water.

Eventually, he left the pools behind, and when he dwelled upon them later, he would wonder how that was so, being as they seemed to go on for miles.

The sound of the gong and its occasional companion grew louder. It was gradual, but it was steady. He could sense that he was getting closer. The anlaegyrn never changed, but light seemed to build in the distance, the glow coalescing into something brighter. The source was indiscernible.

 _What will I find at the end of this journey?_ he wondered. _Will I find the source of the glow, this light?_

A sound broke him from his thoughts, and he stopped in his tracks. It took him too long to register what it was, his mind slow from the sleepiness of this forest. He turned to look back, but saw nothing.

The sound came again, a mighty roar. His hand reached for his rune pouch at his hip, but it met nothing but the leather of his belt. He hadn’t noticed until then, but he was unarmed.

Every nerve ending within him ignited. The roar came again, this time closer. Something was coming and he had nothing to fight back with. This had never happened before.

He felt like he was five years old again, helpless except to watch as orcs attacked the camp that had been his home on the northern border of the Shire. It was a poignant memory sharp enough to pierce the emptiness of his head.

He ran.

He ran as fast as he could away from the origin of the roar. The edges of his vision darkened as he could only focus on going forward and what was ahead of him. His saving grace was that the floor of the forest was devoid of roots and other obstacles.

The light grew and grew as he ran. The glow hung like illuminated dust in the air and it felt like he was cutting through it. He didn’t stop running even when the light reached out and enveloped him.

The light was like a void. He ran and ran, but he lost perspective and it felt like he was not gaining any ground.

The roar came again, drowning out the gonging sound. Whatever it was must have been hungry. _I must be the tastiest thing here._ He was the only thing there that was more than a gulp in size. The only other edible things in the forest was the bark of the anlaegyrn and the grass. There were no leaves on the ground.

Something began to form ahead of him, and he had a point of reference. Like the fog, the light condensed until he could see evidence of civilization. The gonging sounded as his toe caught on the edge of a paving stone he hadn’t noticed. It was deafening.

He pitched forward. He scrambled to catch his balance, but ended up rushing forward faster than he had been before, out of control.

Another roar. His heart was in his throat. The porch of a rectangular-shaped house appeared before him, and he crashed down onto the stairs that lead up to the porch. The pain, which should have been sharp and all-encompassing, was instead faint and far away, like an afterthought.

The door of the house opened, and someone stepped out. Looking up, he saw a young woman standing there, white as snow and eyes so wide her eyes almost bulged. He looked over his shoulder, but saw nothing.

The woman was yanking him by the arm before he could look ahead again. “Come—come on!” she cried. “We need to get inside!” He struggled to his feet and was dragged into the house before he could regain his balance.

She let go of him, letting him collapse to the floor, in order to slam the door shut with both hands. Just in time, too, as something heavy landed hard on the porch and scraping scratching ran up and down the door. The sound was loud and made his teeth hurt.

The young woman stared at the door, trembling as she rubbed at her lips and the teeth underneath them. The door shook, and might have flown open if she hadn’t deadbolted it with what seemed like five locks. Despite that, he watched as she raced to a nearby closet and yanked a strange object from behind a strange, stiff curtain-like door.

Tucking one end under her right arm, she braced the long neck of the object with her left as she went up to the window next to the door. She stayed there for a long while, her eyes not moving from whatever was outside.

He couldn’t move, his muscles too tight. He wondered if they would snap if he tried to move.

This had to be a nightmare, right? This was a nightmare.

As the young woman stared out the window, as the scratching stopped, things seemed to finally come back into focus. There had been something wrong with his eyes… or something. Something he hadn’t realized. The drowsiness seeped from him like mist, and he came back to himself. Mostly.

He looked to his saviour, and took her in, the first living, sentient being he had met in this forest. She was tall, tall for a woman who wasn’t one of the Dúnadain, with hair the same shade as Gondorian hot chocolate. She had pale skin, probably darker than it was now, and red spots dotted along her jaw. She looked like she was from Bree, Trestlebridge, or the North Downs. Her clothes were strange, of strange fabrics he hadn’t seen before.

Several long moments passed, and the noise on the porch continued. The young woman never moved, never looked away from the window. It was utterly silent inside the house.

The light outside changed gradually before she finally moved. She let her left hand drop with a relieved sigh, though worry didn’t leave her face. It was then that he noticed that there was no longer any noise outside, and that life seemed to have been breathed back into the house.

Somewhere, a cat meowed. A dog whimpered. A strange buzzing noise met him, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

The young woman turned and tucked the object back into the closet. “We’re safe now,” she commented. She came over to him and held out her hands, and he took them. Leaning back, she pulled as he pushed himself to his feet. So enthusiastic was she in this endeavor, she nearly went flying back once he was standing and bearing his own weight. He held onto her hands until he was sure she had regained her balance.

“Thank you,” he said at the same time she said “Thanks.” He let go of her hands.

She gave him a shaky smile. “The cougar is gone now. You’re— _we_ ’re safe.”

He gave her a weak bow, his limbs trembling from the fastest run he had ever endured. “ _Hannadh_ , miss.” When he straightened, he saw that her cheeks had grown slightly pink and she was giving him a strangled smile.

“You’re…welcome?” she responded. The set of her brow told him she hadn’t understood what he had said, confirming in his mind that she had to have been from somewhere like Bree-land.

She turned stiffly, and walked into another room. She gestured for him to follow, and as he followed her from the entrance, he noticed that, even though she was tall for the women in the area he used to patrol, her head barely made it to his shoulder now that he was standing. He often forgot how tall he was, but was reminded when he promptly banged his forehead on the doorframe.

He cried out and she jumped in surprise, whirling around to look at him with wide eyes. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He didn’t reply at first, rubbing at his forehead until his hood fell back from his head so he could look up and watch out for any more low-hanging doorframes.

“Are you alright?” she asked again.

This time he gave her a nod and dropped his hand. “I am fine.”

She quickly ushered him over to a small table and chairs set, and pulled a chair out for him. He glanced about the room as she disappeared into what looked like a kitchen attached to the small space he was sitting in. He didn’t see a fireplace, and the sink sat in the counter in the middle of the space was strange.

He stood and approached the counter in the middle of the kitchen. There was so much metal. The sink was metal instead of the normal glazed pottery. A large metal box stood to his left, just slightly shorter than he was. Another metal box with glass panels sat across the kitchen from him.

The girl took a glass from a cupboard next to the metal and glass box, and walked over to the metal box next to him. She pressed the glass to a lever on the front of the box and water fell into the glass.

He must have gasped, because she glanced over to him with a smile.

She held the glass out to him, and he rushed to take his gloves off out of courtesy. He took the glass—and nearly dropped it.

The glass was cold!

She looked at him in concern. “What’s the matter?”

“The water is cold?”

She was confused. “Yes? That’s how it usually is.”

He tried to mull his mind through this fact, his thoughts sluggish. He had only come across such water during winter in the North Downs. Waters in springs would often be cooled during the summer, but were hardly ever frigid. It had been months since he had tasted water even remotely cool, as whatever clean water that bubbled to the surface in the Rift of Núrz Gháshu was warmed by the fires below.

He brought the glass to his lips and took a sip. The water was so cold that it burned on the way down. He could feel the sensation echo in his sinuses and forehead.

“Do you want me to get you warmer water?” she asked. “I have a tap that pours water that’s at ground-temperature.”

He sipped at the cold water again. “No. I am fine.” he gave her a reassuring smile before he went and sat back down at the table. He angled the chair so it half-faced the kitchen before he sat down. Something in his pocket clinked against the wood of the table, and he took it out.

The runestone and the yellow ring stared back at him from the tabletop after he put them down. The ring wasn’t alone anymore, joined by a green ring that he didn’t remember picking up or even looking at.

“What’s this?” the girl asked, sinking into the chair across the table from him. His knees knocked into hers underneath the table, but she didn’t seem phased by that. She reached for the stone, but something made her draw her hand back. “Something… reminds me of the rings… though.” Her eyebrows pinched together. “I just… can’t remember…”

He looked into her eyes and saw a familiar glassiness—her eyes were in focus, but not at the same time. Like there was a fog behind those eyes.

“I found them on the way here,” he told her. He could just remember where he got the runestone, that he had carved it himself, but it was hard to remember. It was almost nothing more than a feeling, like a forgotten word on the tip of his tongue. “Next to a—” next to water. What kind of water? “Next to a pond.”

She hummed. Resting her chin in an open palm, she regarded the rings for a good long time. “They could be magic rings,” she quipped lightheartedly.

He sighed. “I’m not sure.”

“I wonder what they’re made of.” She reached across and touched them with an index finger.

“I find myself wondering the same thing.”

They looked up and met each others’ gazes for a while. The atmosphere around them felt so strange. Incorporeal. There were walls around them, but at the same time it felt like they were sitting in a great expanse. But somehow this felt normal to him, and the girl didn’t seem to notice anything different about her home.

It began to rain outside, droplets tapping against the window in the kitchen.

The girl picked up one of the rings, but dropped it with a gasp. It landed on the runestone and disappeared.

He sat up in his seat, alarm racing through his core. Where—?

The grooves in the runestone lit up, and yellow ribbons of metal filled some of the thin grooves around the outer limits of the carven surface. The girl held her arms up in fear, her limbs bending at the elbow. “What did I do?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but his hand moved as if by its own will. It picked up the other ring and dropped it on the runestone as well. The green ring disappeared, and a few seconds later, green metal-filled thin grooves inside the circle of yellow. The green formed a rune, but it wasn’t one he didn’t recognize. He tried to read it, but his eyes refused to focus on it enough. It was nothing more than a rough blur to him.

“Wow!” the young woman exclaimed.

He breathed out slowly. “Indeed.” He took it and tucked it back into his pocket.

Slowly, she climbed back to her feet. “Would you like something to eat? Tea? Coffee?” What had just happened clearly had unsettled her, and she wanted something to do to try and take her mind from it.

“Hmm?” He looked up at her, not realizing how deep he had fallen into his thoughts. But then her words registered. “Oh, no, I am fine. Thank you.”

“Oh. Okay,” she said, sinking back down into her seat.

He cast his eyes back around the room, and his eyes landed on a bookshelf that stood behind her. He couldn’t read the titles of the books no matter how proudly they were printed on their spines. Even if he could see the letters, something told him he wouldn’t have been able to understand them.

But he recognized a picture on one of the spines. A picture on a spine was a novelty in and of itself, but what the picture was of sparked a memory that came rushing back into his mind faster than an avalanche.

He jumped up, knocking the chair he had been sitting in back. The girl jumped in surprise, but didn’t make a sound as he quickly rounded the table and pulled the book from the shelf. The book was thick, and its mates flopped over into the void it left behind. He whipped the book open and flipped through the pages until he came upon a page that had a picture similar to what he had seen in that crater in the Rift.

“You have found… one of my favourite volcanology books,” the girl said.

“You know of the phenomena described in this book, then?” he asked. At her nod, he placed the book on the table in front of her and pointed to the picture with the blue flames. “What is this? I have seen this and I have smelled it. What kind of danger does it present?”

She blinked at all the questions he fired at her, but her eyes were clearer than ever. She was present.

“You have—? Where? The only place I’ve heard of having sulfur vents that glow blue at night is the volcano of Kawah Ijen in Indonesia,” she said.

“Kawah Ijen? Indonesia? I don’t know these places,” he remarked. “But the place I saw this was at the bottom of a crater near my camp. One of my friends, a distant cousin, showed it to me. I could breathe outside of the crater, but I was unable to breathe when I was down by the fire.”

Her eyes were like saucers. “That’s the sulfur. On Kawah Ijen, the fumes are so caustic that people have to wear breathing masks in order to breathe. The local people mine the sulfur, and even with masks they end up with health problems later on in life. And beware the rain when you’re near any kind of plume sulfur—the rain will trap the sulfur in its drops and turn into sulphuric acid, and that can burn your skin and your clothes.”

He felt his eyes widen. “Burn?”

She nodded, her face serious. “Not like fire, so it can go unnoticed until you start to feel the burning. It can give you big blisters if you get too much on your skin. Look out for red water. Sulfur can make water turn red even though it is yellow when it’s solid.” She sighed. “How volcanic is the area you are living in right now?”

He pursed his lips. “Vol-can-ic—what is this word you speak of? I understand what you’re speaking of, but the term is not translating well.”

She was surprised. “You don’t know what ‘volcanic’ means?” When he shook his head, she tried to explain to the best of her ability. “When I say ‘volcanic’, I’m referring to activities caused by a volcano. Do you know what ‘volcano’ means?” He shook his head again. “What do you call a mountain that spits molten rock out of it? That can have rivers of red hot rock flowing down it.”

He brightened at this. “Ah, I know of one. It’s the only one known. We call it a ‘fire-mountain’, and its name is Orodruin. It lies in the dark land of Mordor.”

Her gaze became distant again. She mouthed the name of the dark land as if she knew it somehow, its reputation piercing even into this strange place.

“I am currently in a land called Angmar, in an out of the way place called the Rift of Núrz Gháshu. There are no erydruin in the area, but there are traces. I can feel the fires deep below my feet. The stone is filled with morvril, and decent-quality iron. We’re there to watch the movements of the enemy,” he explained.

She tapped an index finger to her lips in thought, her gaze sharpening once more. “It sounds like a ‘rift zone’. The ground splits as the rock is pulled away in two or more directions, allowing magma—lava—er…” she noticed the awkward face he pulled at that last word. What exactly was she getting at with the word _lava_? “Molten rock. I mean molten rock. A rift zone lets molten rock come to the surface.”

He nodded and tried to school his face to something more neutral and not something so scandalized. He would laugh about it later, he was sure.

“The… molten rock must be deep below, then, for the crack in the ground is wide and whenever I peer down into its depths, I see no glow. I see nothing but a worn path that leads down into its depths.”

“The rift could be very old, like an old tube formed by passing fire that has collapsed down on itself, allowing it to keep flowing farther down.”

“It holds many dangers and many enemies.”

She looked at him, her expression softening, almost sad. “You will have to be careful. You seem like a nice man, and if all your friends are like you… well… I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

His heart warmed a little from her kind words. “I thank you for your kind words. And your information.” He glanced at the glass of water. “And your icy water.”

She giggled. “It was a pleasure. I don’t find many who are willing to listen to me talk about something I grew up loving to read.”

He smiled, and his cheeks pinched as he smiled wider as she blushed.

“Do you think it is safe to leave yet?” he asked.

Her eyes sparked as she fought the blush. “I’m not sure. Do wild cats linger when they are separated from their prey but know it’s not going anywhere? Or do they lose interest?”

“It is hard to say,” he admitted. “They are usually shot before I notice their behavour. I do know that they do not like our cooking fires and tend to stay away even when they are hungry enough to try and attack us in the open.”

She hummed.

He wanted to ask one more thing before he left. “What is your name?”

She gave him another smile. “I’m—”

Everything was ripped away before she could finish. She disappeared with a snap, her voice gone without an echo. He plunged into a black void until it swallowed him whole and he knew nothing more. He couldn’t hear his own screams.

* * *

He awoke with a gasp, stiffening for a moment as if he had been physically struck.

It took him longer than he liked to realize that he was safe—as safe as one could be in Angmar, and once his muscles relaxed, he realized he was lying flat on his back, clutching something in his right hand. A pale sun, its light barely piercing the enchanted haze that seemed to hang like a curtain over the forsaken kingdom, shone down on him, failing to burn his eyes.

Slowly, he sat up, the hood of his cloak wrinkling awkwardly against his neck. He looked down at what he was holding, stilling when he saw a runestone peeking out between his fingers. He didn’t fall asleep with one of his runestones in his hand last night.

When he opened his fingers, his heart did a strange skip when he saw the pattern—it was the same as the one he saw in his dream. He couldn’t have carved and inlaid it in his sleep. He didn’t even have half the supplies he needed. And he would have gone ahead and inlaid it with aquamarine and white-gold, like he had vaguely planned in his dream.

Arodinnas came over to him as soon as he noticed that she was awake. “Have a good sleep?” the Lore-master greeted.

Camruin looked up at him, eyes bleary. “I think I inhaled too much of the fumes from that crater last night. I had such vivid dreams.”

His friend chuckled. “If that were true, I would have dreamed as well. But I didn’t. My sleep was blissfully empty.”

Camruin sighed. “I dreamt as if I were in another world.” He tucked the new runestone into his pouch, and didn’t mention it. “I met a young woman, and she gave me the information we saught.” He blinked slowly, before reaching up and rubbing at his eyes. “I recognized nothing in that world. But then I was chased by something I couldn’t see. The woman said it was a cougar.”

“That is a vivid dream indeed, my friend,” Arodinnas grinned.

Camruin gave him a half-hearted smile. “Yes.”

It would haunt him for a while. His line wasn’t known for clairvoyance of any kind, but there was something more to that dream than being just a dream. It was a feeling that was growing deep in his stomach. If he ever made it back to Rivendell, he would ask Elrond or Glorfindel about the dream. It had to mean something.

He got up and went over to the fire, where he was handed his bowl and spoon. Breakfast came in the form of what was left of their store of oats, and some dried berries from the dwarves of Gabilshathûr. He didn’t taste anything and he remembered the dream.

Arodinnas plunked himself down next to him and accepted his bowl of breakfast. “So, who was the woman in your dream?” he gave him a teasing smile.

Camruin rolled his eyes. “I didn’t get her name if that is what you are asking. I woke before she could tell me it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Was that a cougar? 👀 I'll let you decide!
> 
> So yes there was a large chunk where basically Camruin tripped over the part of the Wood between the Worlds where Digory, Polly, Jadis, Uncle Andrew and the other characters were when they switched between Earth and Narnia, but at that point the story was basically writing itself. I had to wrestle it back before I accidentally let it drop into a different fandom, lol.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the story. Please don't brick me! *ducks behind wall*
> 
> <><><>
> 
> Translations:
> 
> **Names**
> 
> \- Camruin: "fiery hand | handful of fire | hand of fire" from _cam_ "hand, handful" and _-ruin_ "fire" (like in Orodruin).
> 
> – Forgamdir: "north hand | hand of the north" from _for_ "north" and _cam_ "hand, handful", with the masculine suffix _-dir_ (I don't think it effects the meaning of the name this time). _Cam_ morphs into _gam_ when it's the second element in a name.
> 
> – Malgamba: "gold claw" from _malt_ "gold" and _gamba_ "claw". The 't' in _malt_ disappears (like in mallorn).
> 
> – Arodinnas: "noble will" from _arod_ "noble" and _innas_ "will" (I edited his page on the LotRO wiki and added the meaning of his name and they haven't changed it so I'm sure it's right. I'm sure. *nervous chuckle*)
> 
> – Hithdál: "mist-foot" from _hîth_ "mist" and _tál_ "foot". _Tál_ becomes _dál_ when it is the second element in a name (which means Rovalang's horse in [That is a Saddle, or I am a Dwarf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21078194) should be named Gwaeldál, not Gwaeltàl, but I like its spelling as it is now, so I'm not going to change it, lol).
> 
> **Words**
> 
> – _Hannadh_ : "thank you" from _hanna-_ "to thank" and _-dh_ (pronounced 'han-nath').
> 
> – _Morvril_ : "obsidian" from _morn_ "black" and _bril_ "glass, crystal". A 'b' becomes a 'v' when following a word that ends with a 'r'.
> 
> \- _Erydruin_ : "fire-mountains". Plural for "orodruin", which is also the name of the volcano in Mordor. Chose to use the 'eryd' version of the plural for 'mountain' in order to keep it distinct from 'ered', which is used often for the names of mountain ranges (like Ered Luin (Blue Mountains), Ered Mithrin (Grey Mountains), Ered Nimrais (White Mountains), Ered Lithui (Ash Mountains), etc.).
> 
> – _Lava_ : apparently, "lav-" means "to lick" and the suffix "-a" is possessive. So _lava_ in Sindarin means "to lick someone possessively". 🤣(at least in this story)
> 
> – _anlaegyrn_ "very-green trees" (the singular version is _anlaegorn_ ). There's a chance that the right spelling is _allaegyrn_ ( _allagorn_ ) because of the rule that turns the 'n' at the end of the first words in the compound into a 'l' when the first letter of the second word of the compound is a 'l'. But since the word for 'very' in Sindarin is _an-_ , I've opted to keep it as _an-_ , because I don't want to wreck any rules.
> 
> (Please don't brick me, Tolkien purists!)


End file.
